Church of St Mary the Virgin, Overton-on-Dee

The Church of St Mary the Virgin at Overton-on-Dee in Clwyd, Wales, is a curious old place. Although the tower is the oldest part, perhaps thanks to the various border wars between the English and Welsh, the site is surrounded by 21 yew trees. The day was rainy and cold when I called, so I was disinclined to linger, but I now wish I had taken better photographs. Many of the yews are medieval in origin, but one, behind the sign explaining about the trees, below, is one which has a fence about it. This has been dated to 500AD-1AD. So, it may have been growing in this place during the lifetime of the apostles, or even the Saviour Himself. I suspect it was the site of a sacred grove beloved by our pagan ancestors, which the early Christians were keen to claim for the Living God, by whose people it is still used.

Two carved faces are attached to either side of the north doorway. One is of a bishop, his mitre still discernible while his face is worn away, doubtless helped along by the musket butts of bored or zealous parliamentarian troopers. The other is of a melancholic, veiled female, whose essential features providence has been pleased to preserve. While the old yew may link the site to the age of the apostles if not the very men themselves, it is clear to almost everybody that the wider Church of today is much removed from the purer and simpler times of Jesus' first followers.

Well might the lady mourn the bishop’s disfigured features and the old trees' groaning efforts to remain erect. The church is required to be faithful to its founders, not Rome’s apostolic succession, nor Bethel’s apostolic impersonators, but the Bible’s clear and crisp apostolic teachings.